AUGUST 18Today in Food History

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1587 Virginia Dare was born on Roanoke Island, North Carolina, the first English child born in the New World. However, when a ship with relief supplies returned 3 years later, the colony was abandoned and no trace of the colonists was ever found.

1850 Honore de Balzac died. French author. Balzac would lock himself away during creative bursts, drinking coffee and eating only fruit and eggs. When he finally took a break, he was known to consume huge quantities of food. One report recalls that at the Véry restaurant he consumed at one sitting 'a hundred Ostend oysters, twelve cutlets of salt-meadow mutton, a duck with turnips, two partridges and a Normandy sole,' not to mention the desserts, fruit and liqueurs he finished up with.

1872 Montgomery Ward published the first mail order catalog. It consisted of one page and listed more than 150 items for sale.

1891 The first rainmaking experiments in the U.S. were conducted near Midland, Texas. Robert Dyrenforth set off explosive balloons and artillery to try to make rainclouds. It was thought that the smoke, dust and air disturbances might produce rain. It didn’t. (Rain Trivia)

1929 Attracted by the smell of food in the coffee shop, a 350 pound bear breaks into the lounge of the Hotel Duluth in Minnesota. Police are forced to shoot it when efforts to capture or drive off the bear fail.

1953 Four cows in Stearns county Minnesota were picked up by a tornado and set down unharmed.

2004 It was reported that it rained fish at about 2:30 p.m. in Shropshire, western England.

2010 The USDA expanded a recall of eggs from two Iowa producers to 380 million eggs nationwide after they were linked to an outbreak of salmonella poisoning. (A much smaller initial recall was issued on August 13). The massive recall was expanded to more than half-billion eggs by August 20. More than 1,000 people had been sickened.